Távora affair
The events triggered by the attempted assassination of King Joseph I of Portugal in 1758 ended with the public execution of the entire Távora family, their closest relatives and some servants in 1759.
Some historians interpret the incident as an attempt by prime minister Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo (later Marquis of Pombal) to curb the growing powers of the old aristocratic families.
[1] In the aftermath of the Lisbon earthquake on 1 November 1755, which destroyed the royal palace, King Joseph I took up residence in a tent complex in Ajuda, on the outskirts of the city.
The King lived surrounded by his staff, led by the prime minister, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, and was attended by members of the nobility.
[2][3] Their estates were confiscated by the crown, even before the trial, [3] their palaces in Lisbon destroyed and its soil salted, their name erased from the peerage and their coat-of-arms outlawed.
"[4] A special court, the Suprema Junta da Inconfidência, was authorised to invent the sentences to be imposed on those convicted, because none of those laid down in the law seemed severe enough for them.
They were tied to an aspa (a St. Andrew's Cross) and at the same time as the main executioner put them to death by garrote, his helpers broke their bones with sledgehammers.
Similarly executed were Jerónimo de Ataíde, Count of Atouguia, and the commoners Manuel Álvares Ferreira, Brás José Romeiro, and João Miguel.
[7] Finally, the Marquis of Távora and José Mascarenhas, Duke of Aveiro were executed after showing them the dismembered bodies, and the instruments of their deaths.
As for the King's mistress, the young Marquise Teresa Leonor, according to the British envoy in Lisbon she was sent to a not very strict convent, where she lived "very much at her ease.
"[11] Her relations with King Joseph ended after the alleged assassination attempt, but he ordered that she be given a large pension, and, not surprisingly, there is not the slightest reference to her in the case file.
refer to a convenient coincidence: with the conviction of the Távoras and the Jesuits, all enemies of Sebastião de Melo disappeared and the nobility was tamed.
Moreover, the Távoras' defenders argue that the attempted murder of Joseph I might have been a random attack by highway robbers since the king was travelling without guard or sign of rank on a dangerous Lisbon road.
